Starliner(102)

Ran took the ladder in two steps against artificial gravity, felt that fade in a familiar queasiness in the pit of his stomach as his torso lifted above the skin of the ship. He latched his line, one-handed because the adjustment rod was in his left gauntlet, and planted the magnetic sole of his right boot on the hull with a slap he could feel all through the stiff fabric of his suit.

Ran Colville was going home again to Hell.

The tracks to the Empress's eight engine modules were inlaid into grooves on the hull, rather than being paint which would be worn away by the scrape of men shuffling flat-footed toward their duty stations. Ran followed Track 3, because that had been his first station on the Prester John. Home again—

The Grantholmers had no reason to put a guard at the hull side of the hatch. It was still possible that one of the soldiers-turned-engine tender had found the strain of the Cold too much and was coming in—dispirited but still armed.

Ran stepped forward, pivoting his body to make up for his inability to turn his helmeted head to see sideways. As he moved, his hands worked the adjustment tool, locking both of the tube's joints into their extended position. There were no Grantholmers in sight.

He'd told his men to stay bunched at the hatch until sponge space hid them from sight. Despite that, he stepped forward himself, just to the next staple—

The Cold was coming. No one who had felt it could remain static and await its return.

The stars of this portion of the sidereal universe formed a hazy blur banding the blackness at an angle skewed to the Empress's present attitude. The starliner was in the intergalactic vacuum which made up most of the real universe. Only Bridge and the vessel's data banks could turn this location into a waypost on the journey to Tblisi—or to wherever the hijackers planned to divert her.

The Empress of Earth herself was a gleam little brighter than the distant galaxy, the reflection of light from millions, even billions, of parsecs away. The converted freighter which carried the hijacking party was a darker hint in the black sky. It must be very close, but distances in the void were uncertain without absolute knowledge of the other object's size.

From the hatch, four of the Empress's engine modules were bulges above the starliner's smooth curve. Ran's objective, Engine 3, was on the "underside" of the hull, not visible from where he stood. The inlaid track, a centimeter higher than the surrounding skin, would take him there.

He reached the next staple, twenty meters closer to his destination. He planted his boots, but he didn't bother to unreel his second line and set it before he hit the release stud. A command pulsing down the line opened the hook attached to the staple at the hatch opening.

Ran caught the hook as it sailed toward him, a wink in darkness. He set it to the new attachment point and shuffled on. Men had been known to smash their own faceshields when they snatched the safety line toward themselves too quickly and didn't catch the heavy hook in the end of it.

Two of the engine modules stood out above the hull to which they were joined by basket-woven wire. They were distanced from the skin to protect the vessel in the unlikely event a fusion bottle failed. The elevation also gave the engines wider directability than they would have had if mounted lower. At the moment, the two visible pods pointed thirty degrees to starboard of the starliner's nominal axial plane.

Ran turned and looked behind him. The rest of the Cold Crew—his crew—had spilled out of the hatch and was moving along the hull. Some of the men were hidden beneath the massive curve.

Ran walked onward. He reached the third staple. From that point, he could see all of Engine 7, the pod and strutwork almost down to the hull. A Grantholm soldier was locking in a fresh fuel connector with his adjustment tool. He was a tracery of highlights rather than a figure. The submachine gun slung across his back distorted the image still further.

It was time. The Empress of Earth slid again into sponge space.

On the one hand, everything was light; on the other, Ran was blind, stone blind, because the impulses tripping his rods and cones had no connection with the code which those impulses would have represented in the sidereal universe. He could see nothing, no thing. Not the hull beneath his feet, not the gauntlet which held his safety line.

But he could feel the track against the side of his boot, and his hook snapped in a familiar way into the upstanding staple. Ran slid onward, with the three meters of his adjustment rod out before him.

He had a long way to go to reach Engine 3, but he might meet a Grantholm soldier at any point in the track. Ran's first warning would be the shock of his tool's contact. If that happened, he would withdraw the rod to his arm's length, then ram it forward again.

Ran knew from one past experience that he could strike hard enough to put the tip of an adjustment tool through a suit and half the body within that suit